Featured Resources

Thinking about taking a trip this summer? If so, you better start planning now! The library is a great source of information no matter what kind of vacation you are planning. To get you started, check out our
Travel Subject Guide to see what the library has for your research.

Taking an international trip? Learn a little about the culture and language of the people you will encounter using our
research databases. Going on a road trip to another state? Come to the reference department to look at road atlases and state and city maps. Traveling local? Learn what Ohio has to offer by browsing a selection of books in the Ohio Room.

All this, plus librarian-recommended websites, books, magazines, and more are featured in our
Travel Subject Guide. Check it out today, and start planning your fantastic summer vacation!

News from the Reference Desk

What will you give your sweetie for Valentine’s Day? Will it be candy?
The odds are good it will be.

Take this quiz to see how much you know about the custom.

The answers, which may be found at the bottom of this page, are taken from an article on Valentine's Day Candy in the library database called
Daily Life through History. Read the article by clicking on the icon for the database below. (You may need to enter your library card number and
PIN to access the database.)

Question #1 - Do scholars know when candy became a traditional gift for Valentine’s Day?

Question #2 - What British chocolate maker is credited with introducing the first box of Valentine’s Day chocolates?

Question #3 - In what decade did the New England Confectionary Company (
NECCO) begin selling conversation hearts for Valentine’s Day?

Question # 4 - About how many conversation hearts (aka Sweethearts) does the company now make in the six weeks prior to Valentine’s Day? Is it

​800,000

8 billion

1 million
​

Question #5 - True or False: serotonin and endorphins are found in small amounts in chocolate and are part of the reason we love chocolates on Valentine’s Day and throughout the year.

Do you know about the Great Black Migration? Between 1916 and 1970 over six million African Americans relocated from the segregated South to the large cities in the North. By relocating, they escaped the oppression of “Jim Crow” laws in the South, but often met with other forms of discrimination, such as “white flight”, in the North.

In her book
The Warmth of Other Suns; the Epic Story of America’s Great Migration, Isabel Wilkerson describes in riveting detail the perils and pleasures of the journey northward for three individuals and their families. In the stories of these people there is a direct line of powerlessness and unfair treatment that resonates in the news stories of today. There is also the pride of hard-won gains.

The library owns a database called The Great Black Migration. It has recently been updated. If you are curious about this facet of American history you may want to take a look at it.

As with all the library’s databases, there is a wealth of factual information for research reports. There is a section on
primary documents of the period. They include but are not limited to:

Pages

The UA Archives: our digital initiative

UA Archives is the
Upper Arlington Public Library’s digital library initiative. Through the
UA Archives, the library partners with local organizations and individuals to digitally preserve our community’s historical resources and make them available online. You can use the
UA Archives to:

Our skilled staff will guide you through the maze of resources available in the library and online. They can help you find everything from the price of a used car to the chemical structure of saccharine.

Reference Services

Our online databases
& reference eBooks provide instant access to thousands of magazines, newspapers, and professional journals—as well as business and investment, science, history, literature, and genealogical sources. Most of these databases are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week from your home or office.

This statewide program answers your reference questions and provides homework assistance through a 24-hour live online service. Simply log in with your Ohio zip code, and your questions will be answered via a chat session with a reference librarian.

As part of our mission to encourage lifelong learning, the library offers free test proctoring to students when possible. This service is available through the Reference Department at the Main Library.